Settling in

Making myself back at home in the work of blogging has proved a little challenging for me. While the writing companion in my brain has been largely silent for 18 months, it is now in overdrive, coming up with posts spanning the entire period. And while I wish that I had time to write all of the entries, I also find myself wishing that I didn't have the fear of the Swine reading my writing and finding some way to use it against me.

So I don't know if I CAN continue at the url after all. Deep sigh. Email me.

In other news, Seattle has been blanketed in snow since Wednesday night. And I have been in heaven for just as long. I seriously heart snow. Adore it. I don't, however enjoy driving in snow. And it is for that reason that I haven't driven since it snowed. It doesn't help that my driveway is a veritable mountain slope, and my useless property managers haven't come by to salt, sand or shovel. It's now a slick slab of ice.

So we've been walking everywhere, and I love it. I walk a lot around Bellevue already; that's why I live where I do, but the best part of about walking everywhere when it snows is that there are tons of other people walking as well. And people talk to each other and smile at each other and it is all very shocking.

Living in the Seattle area is to live in the land of the cold shoulder. There ain't no Southern hospitality here, y'all. Sure Seattlites are nice people, but unapproachable is one of the pick-3-describe-Seattle-residents words. It's one of the reason dating is so hard in Seattle, and the reason I was so surprised when a couple of youths said hello, how are you as I walked down Belelvue Way. Youths usually shuffle, heads down, only talking to people they know, only referencing the unknown around them to make fun of it. They giggle and look not-so-furtively in your direction. They don't smile and ask how you're doing. But then they do when there is snow on the ground.

We smiled at passersby, we merry band of three, and they smiled at us, nodded heads, told us to have fun, in reference to the red sled we pulled behind us. And have fun we did, where, at the Downtown Park in Bellevue, we found an untouched hill of powdery snow and sled on our bottoms, backs, stomachs and feet before trudging to the grocery store for such necessities as marshmallows and rice krispies, and then on to home for some hot cocoa and more DVRed Christmas specials.

I hear snow.